John Whelan: LEOs urged to get more small business exporting

Encouraging more small businesses to take the risk, jump on a plane, find a new customer, and build overseas sales is challenging at the best of times. But getting 2,000 to do this by the end of next year is challenging, to say the least.

"A state-owned export/import bank has been the solution in the US, why not here,"  asks John Whelan. Pic: David Creedon

There is a strange dichotomy between the rampant export growth of our large companies and the low level of export activity among our small companies.

The debate about Ireland’s economic outperformance flared up again after Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) published its 2022 growth estimate of 12.2% for the economy last month, the highest in the OECD club of rich nations and single-handedly preventing the eurozone economy from stagnating in the final three months of last year.